A study on evidential modal markers in english

A study on evidential modal markers in english

PART I: INTRODUCTION

* * *

1 MOTIVATION OF THE STUDY

Natural languages, true enough, offer speakers many and various linguistic devices tofacilitate their communication That is, these devices are supposed to support the speakersin terms of sharing information together with expressing their emotions and attitudes Moreimportantly, these linguistic devices do give some certain influence over the listeners orthe information recipients’ beliefs or behaviors These devices fall into the category ofEvidentials – one kind of Epistemic modality

(1) It sounds like it’s raining (Evidentials)(2) The rumor is that she was killed (Evidentials)

Linguistically, Evidentials are of prime importance in both spoken and written language.Evidentials, admittedly, are said to come to the speakers’ assistance in expressing welltheir certainties, their doubts, their guesses, and their hypotheses in conversations andwritings based upon the certain and absorbed ground of information In other words, theirutterance is normally said to consist of their attitudes towards the accepted fact in terms ofbelievability, reliability, and compatibility

However, not many linguists have formed a distinctively profound study on Evidentialmodal markers Most of the celebrated linguists have paid great attention to discussing

Modality in general and Epistemic modality in particular Palmer (Mood and Modality,1986), for example, investigates and restricts his study of Epistemic modality to what is

systematized and organized within the grammatical systems of languages Whereas,

Holmes (Mood and Modality,1986) presents the expression of Epistemic modality to which

is attached the use of the full range of lexical devices in a variety of written and spoken

texts Lyons (Semantics, 1977) then offers theoretically possible examples of objective

Epistemic modality together with subjective modality including modal adverbs such as

1

“certainly” and “possibly” mentioned as lexical devices Givón (Mind, Code and Context –Essays in Pragmatics, 1989) also shows his interest in modality in a way of producing atheory of Epistemic scale, meanwhile Halliday (An Introduction to Functional Grammar,1985) applies his Theme-Rheme structure to the describing the syntactic functions of

Epistemic markers in a clause as message Also, among the Vietnamese linguists whoprove absorbed in studying Epistemic modality, Do Huu Chau stands out as a linguist whodiscusses the concept of Epistemic modality in the view of pragmatics under his account

(Systematic Semantics – Active Semantics, 1983)

Besides, as far as learners of English are concerned, to master successfully Evidentials isnot an easy task, even for those who are at more advanced proficiency levels It is wellobserved that English learners just focus on the use of some certain Evidentials such as

“think, sure, believe”, which sound popular and are ready on the tip of their tongue To put

another way, they lack varieties of Evidentials to encode the ground of information in theirutterance Consequently, that is thought to cause a barrier to the communication co-operation, even the doubt about the reliability of the utterance Moreover, the poor use ofEvidentials this way limits them to boring conversations

Given all the reasons, such a good and informatively full-of-knowledge study on

Evidentials in English is necessary Thus, the choice of “A study on Evidential ModalMarkers in English” as the subject of the thesis is not accidental.

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The study of Evidentials in English is centrally concerned with the following focuses:

i How evidentiality is expressed by Evidential modal adverbs and adjectives in English.ii How evidentiality is expressed by Evidential modal nouns in English.

iii How evidentiality is expressed by Evidential modal lexical verbs in English.

To achieve the aim, the study will examine three factors – semantic, syntactic, andpragmatic – that are said to have effects on the use of the expression forms of Evidentials.

The study is expected to clarify the relationship between these expression forms and thedifference in the way they express evidentiality.

3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Due to the limitation of time, it seems too ambitious to cover all the means to encodeevidentiality in English Therefore, it is much better and more practical that the study just

centers on pure Evidentials Hence, a relatively small set of high-frequency Evidential

lexical items which are restricted to our attention appear to stand out as follows:

 Evidential modal adverbs and adjectives: seemingly, apparently - apparent,

evidently - evident, obviously - obviously, surely – sure, undoubtedly, doubtful.

 Evidential modal nouns: rumor, doubt, truth.

 Evidential modal lexical verbs: think, believe, guess, suppose, doubt, see, hear,

taste, feel, smell, appear, seem, say, tell, sound, look.

Despite the fact that the paralinguistic factors such as hesitations, facial expressions, bodygestures, eye movements, etc play an important role in expressing evidentiality, we find itimpossible to figure them out in this thesis due to the limitation of time That is the reason

why we study Evidentials in only three aspects: semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic.

In terms of semantic aspect, we will have a focused investigation into the lexical meaningof the Evidential modal markers On these grounds, we will put them in order of certaintylevel, which proves useful for our study analysis.

As far as syntactic aspect is concerned, we will have a close look at the way the utterances

including Evidential modal markers are grammatically structured Moreover, the position

of these Evidential modal markers embedded within the utterance grasps our greatattention.

3

From the pragmatic aspect, we find it necessary to deal with the conditions that govern the

use of these Evidential modal markers in the process of communication such as speechacts Additionally, in order to have a more comprehensive account on the culture-specificaspect of Evidential modal markers, we will take account of theory of politeness

4 METHODS OF THE STUDY

Data collection procedure:

With respect to the data presented in the thesis, they include primarily examples collectedfrom authentic sources such as TV News Programmes at the website of BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk) (the programs broadcast on 4th - 30th April, 2008), and the newspaperInternational Herald Tribune, The Global Edition of The New York Times, Issues:September 5th - 14th, 2003 These written materials, and T.V News Programmes are all ofcommon topics found in everyday life All the data were noted down when we werewatching the TV News Programmes and reading the issues of International HeraldTribune The data are collected randomly from these two sources Yet, the data presentedin this study represent only a fraction of the data considered in developing the proposedanalysis With a view to serving the study well, utterances used as examples are indeclarative form or the form for statements A chosen utterance is required to:

 correspond to the expression of an Evidential modal function,

 and involve explicit one or more Evidential modal markers which have beenmentioned as Evidential modal adverbs and adjectives, Evidential modal nouns,and Evidential modal lexical verbs.

Data analysis procedure:

The theoretical background is based on the theoretical frameworks by different linguists.Von Wright (1951), Steele (1975), Lyons (1977, 1995), Givãn (1982, 1989), Palmer (1986,2000), Keifer (1987), etc propose such well known and convincing researches on whichwe will rely for the theory of Modality in general, and Epistemic modality in particular.

Meanwhile, the linguists such as Belbert, (1977), Barnes (1984), Anderson (1986), Chafe(1986), Willett (1988), Bybee (1995), de Haan (1998, 2001), Nuyts (2000), De Lancey(2001), etc stand out with multi-dimensional reseaches into Evidentials That seems toopen a world of references relevant in support of this thesis The presentation of theselinguists’ theory is to give the readers a big picture of Modality, Epistemic modality, and

Evidentials However, for the main aims of studying and analyzing the thesis semantically,

we are going to take the frameworks by Givãn (1982, 1989), and Palmer (1986, 2000) intoconsideration as principal ground of theory on which the Evidential modal markers areanalyzed The reason is that we look at Evidentials as devices of modality, which is wellsupported by Palmer’s theory Besides, we tend to rank these Evidential modal markers atthe scale of certainty level, which is well proposed by Givãn

Furthermore, in terms of syntactic aspect, we are going to follow the theory by Quirk(1972), and Halliday (1985) which forms the basis for the analysis of Evidentials The twolinguists’ frameworks are at my disposal when investigating the position of the Evidentialmodal markers located within the utterance and examining the grammatical structures builtfor the expressions of evidentiality

As stated in the Scope of the study, we are going to consider Evidential modal markers inthe context of the process of communication; hence, we will take account of the strategiesthe speaker uses when uttering with Evidential modal markers in light of Searle’s (1969,1985), and Austin’s (1962) theory about Speech Acts and Brown’s and Levinson’s (1987)theory about politeness That may well facilitate our discussion about the pragmaticaspects of Evidentials in the thesis.

5 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

It sounds appropriate to divide the paper into three main parts:

Part I: Introduction

5

The Introduction presents the background of the study, states what the study is aimed atand what specific tasks it deals with, identifies the delimitation of the study, and gives a

sketch of methods utilized together with the organization of the study.

Part II: Development

The Development includes 4 chapters:

 Chapter 1 is concerned with the theoretical concepts of Modality, Epistemicmodality, and Evidentials

 Chapter 2 discusses the semantic features of English Evidential modal markers withVietnamese equivalents.

 Chapter 3 presents the syntactic features of English Evidential modal markers  Chapter 4 deals with the pragmatic features of English Evidential modal markers

Part 3: Conclusion

The Conclusion offers an overview or a summary of the study in relation to modality,epistemic modality in general, and Evidential modal markers in particular Someimplications relevant are brought forward for learners of English and for further studies

PART II: DEVELOPMENT* * *

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 DEFINITION OF MODALITY

A brief glance at two well-known languages, Latin and English is sufficient to suggest thatthe first assumption can be justified Latin has its systems of mood: indicative, subjective

and imperative; while English has a system of modal verbs: may, can, will, must, etc.

The modal system of most familiar languages is formally associated, along with tense,aspect and voice, with the verbal systems of the language (and even gender, number andperson are marked on the verb) Yet, modality, as will be seen, does not relate semanticallyto the verb alone or primarily, but to the whole sentence Not surprisingly, therefore, thereare languages in which modality is marked elsewhere rather than on the verb or within averbal complex.

It is common knowledge that the notion of modality is much vaguer and leaves open anumber of possible definitions Here is the presentation of some promising definitions by

some celebrated and granted linguists

1.1.1 DEFINITION OF MODALITY

In Palmer’s theory (Mood and Modality, 1986), modality is defined as semantic

information associated with the speaker’s attitude or opinion about what is said Whereas,

Bybee (Morphology: A study of the Relation between Meaning and Form, 1985) offers a

broader definition that modality is what the speaker is doing with the whole proposition.

Though these definitions diverge on the particulars, they agree that modality concerns

7

entire statements, not just events or entities, and its domain is the whole expression at thetruth-functional level.

The notion content of modality highlights its association with entire statements; modalityconcerns the factual status of information: it signals the relation actuality, validity orbelievability of the content of an expression Modality affects the overall assertability of anexpression and thus takes the entire proposition within its scope As such, modality evokesnot only objective measures of factual status but also subjective attitudes and orientationtoward the content of an expression by its utterers.

Halliday (An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 1985) views that modality represents

the speaker’s angle, either on the validity of the assertion, or on the rights and wrongs ofthe proposal It is obviously seen that his definition of modality does not diverge much

from Palmer’s and Bybee’s

For the good sake of a manageable study, it is recommended that Modality herein beunderstood in its narrow sense as a semantic term concerning the speaker’s attitude oropinion to the utterance.

1.1.2 PROPOSITION AND MODALITY

Jespersen (The philosophy of grammar, 1924) talks about the “content of the sentence”

and Lyons (Semantics, 1977) about “the proposition that the sentence expresses”, both

wishing to distinguish them from the speaker’s attitude or opinion This assumes that adistinction can be made in a sentence between the modal and the propositional elements,between modality and proposition.

The distinction between proposition and modality is very close to that of locutionary act

and illocutionary act as proposed by Austin (How to do things with words, 1962) In the

locutionary act we are “saying something”, while in the illocutionary act we are “doingsomething” – answering a question, announcing a verdict, giving a warning or making a

promise These ideas are on the basis of speech act theory.

Lewis (An analysis of knowledge and evaluation, 1946) proposes that “the proposition is

assertable; the contents of the assertion…can be questioned, denied or merely supposed,and can be entertained in other moods as well.” But “modality” in this sense, referring to

all the non-propositional elements of a sentence, is much wider than in the sense in whichit will be used here

Similarly, Rescher (Topics in philosophical logic, 1968) talks about propositions and

argues that where a proposition (which may be true or false) is subject to furtherqualification, this qualification represents modality.

1.1.3 TYPES OF MODALITY

The distinction that Jespersen (The philosophy of grammar, 1924) draws between his two

sets: “containing an element of will and not containing an element of will” is closely

paralleled in Lyons’ reference to “the speaker’s opinion or attitude towards theproposition described” Lyons, in conjunction with other scholars, recognizes two kinds ofmodality, using Wright’s terms:

Epistemic modality, which is concerned with matters of knowledge, belief or opinion

rather than fact.

Deontic modality, which is concerned with the necessity or possibility of acts performed

by morally responsible agents.

Steele et al (An encyclopedia of AUX: a study in cross-linguistic equivalence, 1981)

implicitly make the same distinction: “Elements expressing modality will mark any of thefollowing: possibility or the related notion of permission, probability or the related notion

of obligation, certainty or the related notion of recruitment.” The remarks in Steele et al.

can be illustrated from English; the following sentences can be interpreted either in termsof possibility, probability, and necessity, or in terms of permission, obligation andrequirement:

9

(3) He may come tomorrow (Perhaps he will/ He is permitted.)

(4) The book should be on the shelf (It probably is/ Its proper place is.)(5) He must be in his office.

(I am certain that he is/ He is obliged to be.)

Lyons (1977) also suggests a distinction between objective modality and subjective

modality He presents a typical example:(6) Alfred may be unmarried.

It can be interpreted that the speaker may be understood as subjectively qualifying hiscommitment to the possibility of Alfred’s being unmarried in his own certainty terms and

the sentence is more or less equivalent to “perhaps Alfred is unmarried” There are,

however, situations in which the possibility of Alfred’s being unmarried is presentable asan objective fact The speaker might reasonably say that he knows, and does not merelythink or believe, that there is a possibility of Alfred’s being unmarried In his words:

“Objective modality refers to reality; it is part of the description of the world Subjectivemodality, on the other hand, is the expression of the speaker’s beliefs.”

These are two kinds of epistemic modality The semantic differences between subjective

and objective epistemic modality are significant Objective modalized sentences arestatements of fact; thus, they can be denied and questioned while subjective epistemicsentences, express the speaker’s beliefs and not statement of fact; hence, they cannot be

denied or questioned.

1.2 EPISTEMIC MODALITY

1.2.1 DEFINITIONS OF EPISTEMIC MODALITY

The term “epistemic” is suggested to be applied to not only modal systems that basicallyinvolve the notions of possibility and necessity, but to any modal system that indicates thedegree of commitment by the speaker to what he says In particular, it should includeEvidentials such as “hearsay” or “report” (the Quotative) or the evidence of the senses TheDeclarative, moreover, can be regarded as the unmarked (“unmodalized”) member of anepistemic system, though by this definition some languages have no “unmodalized”declaratives.

This use of the term may be wider than usual, but it seems completely justifiedetymologically since it is derived from Greek word meaning “understanding” or“knowledge” (rather than “belief”), and so is to be interpreted as showing the status of thespeaker’s understanding or knowledge; this clearly includes both his own judgments andthe kind of warrant he has for what he says

It is often claimed in the linguistics literature that epistemic modality, unlike other kinds ofmodality, does not contribute to the truth conditions of the utterance Relatedly, severalcommentators argue that epistemic modality expresses a comment on the propositionexpressed by the rest of the utterance:

Epistemic modality… is the speaker’s assessment of probability and predictability It is

external to the content, being a part of the attitude taken up by the speaker: his attitude, inthis case, towards his own speech role as ‘declarer’ (Halliday, 1970: 349)

Epistemic modality indicates … the status of the proposition in terms of the speaker’s

commitment to it (Palmer, 1986: 54-5)

Epistemics are clausal-scope indicators of a speaker’s commitment to the truth of a

proposition (Bybee & Fleischman, 1995: 6)

11

Epistemic modals must be analyzed as evidential markers As such they are part of the

extra-propositional layer of clause structure and take scope over all propositionaloperators (Drubig, 2001: 44)

The intuition underlying this view is that epistemic modality in natural language marks thedegree and/or source of the speaker’s commitment to the embedded proposition.According to this view, the proposition expressed by the utterance in (9) can beparaphrased by (10); the modal force of the utterance indicates that the speaker entertainsthe embedded proposition with a low degree of commitment:

(7) John may be at home.(8) John is at home.

This position on epistemic modality is at odds with several semantic treatments ofmodality, in which epistemic modality (alongside other types of modality) is seen asregularly contributing to truth conditions On these accounts, modal operators in naturallanguage encode modal force (necessity or possibility) which gets relativized with respect

to different types of contextual assumptions or conversational backgrounds (Kratzer, 1981;

1991; cf Lewis, 1986; Brennan, 1993; Papafragou, 2000) Depending on the specificconversational background selected, modal expressions receive different kinds ofinterpretation, as shown by the paraphrases in the examples below:

(9) The children must be leaving.

(10) a In view of what the speaker knows, the children must be leaving b In view of what their obligations are, the children must be leaving.(11) John may leave.

(12) a In view of what the speaker knows, John may leave b In view of what the circumstances are, John may leave.

The interpretations in (9a), (12a) involve epistemic conversational backgrounds, whilethose in (9b) or (12b) involve deontic (or root) conversational backgrounds In this kind of

theory, deontic and epistemic modality are treated symmetrically, and both are seen ascontributing to the proposition expressed by the utterance.

1.2.2 TYPES OF EPISTEMIC MODALITY

It is well known that Palmer claims epistemic modality is divided into two basic

categories: Judgements and Evidentials It is can be vividly described in the diagram

unmarked memberequivalence“stronger than”

13

As shown in the diagram, Judgments and Evidentials are stated to be concerned with theindication by the speaker of his commitment to the truth of the proposition beingexpressed Concretely, the former includes all epistemic notions that involve possibilityand necessity, particularly with regard to speculation and deduction on the part of the

speaker as subject or perceiver of the information Judgments assert the possibility of thetruth of a proposition without any overt indication of the grounds for the assertion.Judgments can be categorized by the degree of confidence that the speaker has in the

assertion, which produce two subcategories: necessary judgments and possible

judgments, respectively based upon inference and confidence, deduction and speculation,

or strong and weak judgment It is observed that Judgments in English, which have avariety of modal auxiliaries to indicate the speaker’s assessment of the content of theproposition It is well described in these following examples:

(13) Michael might lead the league in scoring next season.(14) There must have been many chairs in that room.

In contrast to Judgments are Evidentials, which encode the grounds on which a speakermakes an overtly qualified assertion Unlike Judgments, Evidentials explicitly signal the

collateral that a speaker takes as substantiating an assertion The concepts as well as the

types of Evidentials will be discussed further and detailedly presented in the next part.

1.3 CONCEPTS OF EVIDENTIALS

1.3.1 DEFINITIONS OF EVIDENTIALS

As mentioned above, Evidentials encode the grounds on which a speaker makes an overtly

qualified assertion To put it in another way, Evidentials encode the speakers’ source of

information as well as indicate the reliability of the information They put in perspective orevaluate the truth-value of a sentence both with respect to the source of the informationcontained in the sentence, and concerning the degree to which this truth can be verified orjustified Synonymously, Evidentials illustrate the type of justification for a claim that is

available to the person making that claim This justification can be expressed by markersreferring to immediate evidence on the basis of visual observation, to inference on the

basis of (non)observable facts, to deduction or inference, etc In “Chafe & Nicholas”

(1986), briefly, they represent a “natural epistemology”

More clearly stated, Evidentials also are to relativize or measure the information status ofthe sentence The term “information status” is intended to include both the truth-value of asentence and the relative importance accorded to it Evidentials are said to own itself twoessential properties First and most importantly, a source of evaluation or reliability of thesentence is involved This “source of information” defines who stands for the informationstatus of the sentence Secondly, the information status of the sentence is most oftenmeasured on the type varies: the sentence is measured with respect to reliability,probability, expectation or desirability

1.3.2 DEFINITIONS OF EVIDENTIAL MODAL MARKERS

Evidential modal markers are defined as lexical categories which indicate how and towhat extent speakers stand for the truth of the statements they make In English, all

Evidential modal markers are lexical English does not have grammaticalized Evidentials,but there are lexicalized Evidentials The lexicalized Evidentials of English include theEvidential modal senses of verbs of expression and verbs of appearance, and Evidential

adverbs such as “evidently and apparently” Other language units for Evidential modal

markers are about to be well-mentioned later

1.3.3 TYPES OF EVIDENTIALS

In the views of different linguists, Evidentials can be divided in different ways Jakoson

(1957) represents four types of Evidentials in terms of the source of information:

 quotative (hearsay),

 revelative (dream),

 a guess (presumptive), and

15

 previous experience (memory).

For Carib, Hoff (1991) distinguishes introspective Evidentials (knowledge frominference) from extraspective Evidentials (culturally available knowledge)

Taking Evidentials into consideration, Palmer (1986) observes that there are at least four

ways of presenting a statement or a fact:

 speculative,

 deductive,

 hearsay,

 appearance based on sensory evidence

Barnes (1984) suggests that visual, nonvisual (sensory), apparent, secondhand, andassumed be types of Evidentials.

Generally known, Evidentials can encode speaker-oriented qualifications of propositionsalong two dimensions:

 in terms of the evidence they are based on

 with respect to the speaker’s commitment to their truth

The two dimensions – whether the proposition is based on perceptual evidence andwhether the speaker believes in its truth – are logically independent Yet natural languagetypically treats propositions based on perceptual evidence on the part of the speaker aspropositions asserted by the speaker to be true Similarly, if a speaker marks a propositionas based not on first-hand evidence, he/she typically expresses non-commitment to the

truth of the proposition That is why it is more useful to think of the terms Direct and

Indirect – the two subcategories of Evidentials – as making a distinction based not on

whether or not the evidence is perceptual, but on whether or not the evidence justifies thespeaker’s belief in proposition

Diagram 2: Types of Evidentials

(15) I heard him beating the dog at 7 p.m yesterday (Direct Evidentials)

(16) Rumor has it that the police have arrested John (Indirect Evidentials)

1.3.4 SCALES OF EVIDENTIALS

No doubt arises that scales, and more generally hierarchies, have proven useful tools intypology as well in semantics and pragmatics In typological research, the most commontype of hierarchy are implicational universals which are used to predict possible andimpossible language systems as well as directions of diachronic language change, amongother things (Croft ,1990, and Dik, 1981) In semantics and pragmatics, linguistics scalesare taken to be an ordering of a set of linguistic expressions belonging to a singlegrammatical category, where the order is determined by degree of informativeness or

IndirectEvidentialsDirect

includes all the markers of the

speaker’s firsthand evidence such as visual, auditory, and other sensory modalities, with visual evidence by far

the most reliable.

encompasses all forms of secondhand

fact such as report, quotation, hearsay, assumption, appearance, and all other

types of supportive, auxiliary information, of which quotation and hearsay are found the most common

semantics strength (Levinson, 2000) These scales are generally used to explainconversational implicatures (Grice, 1989) associated with the linguistic expressions theyorder

In terms of Evidential scales, Willet (1988) proposes the hierarchy as follows:

ATTESTED > REPORTED > INFERRING

In this hierarchy, he explains that “on the scale from most to least direct, Attested evidenceis ranked as the most reliable source, Inferring evidence as the least reliable, andReported evidence somewhere in the middle” (Willett, 1988:86)

Thus, for Willett the speaker’s preference of certain evidence types over others is based ontwo criteria: directness and reliability He goes on to say that “a speaker using on Inferringevidential denies having reported or direct evidence,” that is, for him the indirect negationbetween Inference and Reportative goes in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile, it is seen that de Hann (1998) shows another scale for Evidentials:

VISUAL > NONVISUAL > INFERENTIAL > QUOTATIVE

Here, de Hann orders Inferential above Quotative He also uses two ordering criteria, thefirst of which is also directness However, his second criterion is not reliability Withrespect to the relative ordering of Inference and Quotative, de Hann (1998) states:

“Within the area of indirect evidence, Inference is closer to direct evidence than Hearsaybecause by using a Quotative, the speaker relies wholly on evidence that comes fromanother source The Inferential is used when the speaker is involved himself or herself withthe evidence to a certain degree The speaker makes deductions on the basis of evidence.This evidence has been collected by the speaker, which makes him or her more of andactive partner than in the passive act of receiving information from another source.”

Thus, de Hann’s second criterion is speaker involvement Willett and de Hann, therefore,agree on the relative orderings derived from directness, namely that all kinds of directevidence should be ordered above all kinds of indirect evidence, but their different secondcriteria lead them to postulate different relative orderings of Inference and Reportative To contribute to building up the scales of Evidentials’ certainty, Givãn argues thatlanguages qualify evidence along four gradients It is clearly shown in the diagram below:

Diagram 3: Gradients of quantified evidence (Givãn, 1989)

Moreover, Givãn argues that there are three kinds of propositions (P), typed by their

inherent certainty and need for substantiation:

19The High Certainty

The Medium Certainty

The Low Certainty

P are taken for

P are doubtful

hypotheses and beneath challenge

and substantiation P here are known

as irrealis The

information whose source is largely irrelevant is

weakly asserted The speaker does not intend to defend the information in order to solicit challenge, correction or corroboration.

P are open to

challenge and thus require supporting evidence P are

prepared to defend the information by citing the source of evidence.

Hearer

Diagram 4: Scale of Evidentials’ certainty (Givãn, 1989)

If a speaker is forced to choose evidence to defend his assertion, he chooses evidenceaccording to the four scales presented in the diagram, and according to the internal order ofthe gradients, vision over hearing, for instance.

Givãn provides rules of evidence for his scale and points out that only in the case of assertion is evidence assumed to be both available and expected, which is rankedaccording to the degree of evidentiary strength It is also claimed that in languages furtherdifferentiating among several sensory sources of direct evidence, the grammar ofevidentiality tends to rank the senses according to their reliability as source of evidence.Besides, in the grammar of evidentiality, one finds the ranking of either the participants inthe event according to person or the temporal proximity of the reported event to the speechtime in a rather predictable way The diagram below does help to illustrate the scales:

realis-Diagram 5: Types of scales (Givãn, 1989)

1.3.5 EVIDENTIALS AND INTERACTION

Various different types of interaction may arise between Evidentials and different values ofperson In particular, interactions may affect the frequency or the interpretation ofEvidentials, or both These interactions can be considered to fall into four types:

 (1) The frequency of certain Evidentials varies greatly depending on person.For example, reported Evidentials are uncommon with first person becausenormally when a speaker was involved in an action, they do not need to betold that it occurred.

 (2) The interpretation of some Evidentials in some languages changesdepending on the person values in the sentence For example, with a first

Scale of temporal proximityScale of spatial

proximityScale of

participants in eventsScale of

reliability of sensory evidenceScale of

evidentiary of source

a Direct

sensory experience

b Inference

from direct sensory evidence

b Away

from speech situation

a Nearer to

speech time

b Farther

away from speech time

person subject, non-witnessed Evidentials often encode that an action wasnon-volitional, rather than indicating that the speaker did not witness theevent, their more common interpretation.

 (3) Particular Evidentials and person values cannot co-occur in particularlanguages For example, in some languages an inferred evidential cannot beused in first person contexts.

 (4) Certain Evidentials can be used with utterances which involve anyperson, but with restrictions on particular combinations of person andevidential with particular predicate types For example, a predicateindicating something about an internal state may be used with a non-visualevidential, showing a speaker’s knowledge is based on feeling - but only ifthe internal state relates to the speaker, since otherwise the speaker cannotknow about the state through having felt it.

These four types of interaction are not fully independent — for example, it is preciselywhen a particular combination of person and evidential is infrequent that the evidential islikely to develop a distinct interpretation However they are a useful schema for examiningand classifying types of interaction.

1.4 THEME - RHEME STRUCTURE AND EVIDENTIALS

Halliday (An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 1985) observes that in all languages,

the clause has the character of a message: it has some form of organization giving it astatus of a communicative event In English, as in many other languages, the clause isorganized as a message by having a special status assigned to one part of it One element inthe clause is enunciated as the Theme; this then combines with the remainder so that thetwo parts together constitute a message.

In Halliday’s reference, the Theme is the element which serves as the point of departure ofthe message; it is that with which the clause is concerned The remainder of the message,the part in which the Theme is developed, is called the Rheme As a message structure,therefore, a clause consists of a Theme accompanied by a Rheme; and the structure isexpressed by the order – whatever is chosen as the Theme is put first.

As a general guide, the Theme can be identified as the element which comes in that firstposition in the clause to be the starting point for the message; it is what the clause is goingto be about Additionally, the Theme can be nominal group, an adverbial group, or apropositional phrase.

(17) The dukehas given my aunt that teapot(18) Very carefullyshe put him back on his feet again(19) With sobs and tearshe sorted out those of the largest size

As for the Modal markers in general, and Evidential modal markers in particular, Hallidayconsiders them the Modal adjuncts which are pointed out to be thematic, but not to beobligatory so Besides, within the structure Evidential modal constructions can be found inmany positions Their mobility is well seen in the following examples:

(20) I am sure (that)Peter (Theme)can pass the exam (Rheme)(21) Peter, (Theme) I am sure,can pass the exam (Rheme)(22) Peter (Theme) can pass the exam, (Rheme) I am sure.

1.5 BACKGROUND ON SPEECH ACT THEORY

1.5.1 SPEECH ACT THEORY

23

This section offers a brief introduction to the basic speech act theoretic concepts developedby Searle and his colleagues (Searle and Vanderveken, 1985, Vanderveken, 1990,Vanderveken, 1991.) who based them on ideas first introduced by Austin (1962).

Austin (1962) presents three acts the speaker performs when he/she utters a sentence:

 Perlocutionary act

By perlocutionary act, the speaker conveys an idea, a further purpose which can beinterpreted by the hearer, not on the surface of the words and structures of thesentence by means of his manner of locutionary act in an actual situation.

Here come the basic assumptions of speech act theory which are summarized in thefollowing quote from Searle and Vanderveken (1985).

The minimal units of human communication are speech acts of a typecalled illocutionary acts (terminology introduced by Austin (1962)).Some examples for illocutionary acts are statements, questions,commands, promises, and apologies Whenever as speaker utters asentence in an appropriate context with certain intentions, he performsone or more illocutionary acts In general an illocutionary act consists of

an illocutionary force F and a propositional content P For example, the

two utterances “You will leave the room” and “Leave the room!” havethe same propositional content, namely that you will leave the room; butcharacteristically the first of these has the illocutionary force of aprediction and the second has the illocutionary force of an order (Searle

 the assertive point which consists of representing as actual a state of affairs;

 the commissive point which consists of committing the speaker to a future course

of action;

 the directive point which consists of making an attempt to get the hearer to do

 the declarative point which consists of performing an action which brings into

existence a state of affairs by representing oneself as performing that action;

 and the expressive point which consists of expressing propositional attitudes of the

speaker about a state of affairs.

Illocutionary forces have three types of pre-conditions as components:

 Propositional content conditions put restrictions on the propositional content of an

illocutionary act of a particular force For example, the propositional content of apromise must present a speaker’s future course of action.

25

 Preparatory conditions are certain propositions that speaker takes for granted in

performing the illocutionary act.

 Sincerity conditions are “propositional attitudes of the form m(P), where m is a

psychological mode such as, for instance, desire, regret, or hope […] Aperformance of an illocutionary act is sincere when the speaker has the mentalstate that he expresses in the performace of that act, and it is insincere otherwise”(Vanderveken, 1990:117).

In respect of the degree of strength of an illocutionary force, it is considered a property ofthe mental states that are expressed in the sincerity conditions As Vanderveken (1990:119)states, “the degree of strength of the sincerity conditions of supplication is greater than thatof a request, because a speaker who supplicates expresses a stronger desire than a speakerwho requests Similarly, the degree of strength of a testimony is greater than that of aconjecture, because a speaker who testifies something expresses a stronger belief than aspeaker who simply makes a conjecture”.

1.5.2 THEORY OF POLITENESS

1.5.2.1 POLITENESS IN CONVERSATIONAL MAXIM VIEW

Leech (1983) sees cultural rules at work in expressions of politeness and attempts tocategorize in more detail some of the underlying intent behind these forms by articulating aset of rules or Politeness Maxims at work in polite dialogue.

 Tact maxim: minimize cost and maximize benefit to other.

 Meta maxim: don’t impose on other so that he/she is made to break the first maxim. Generosity maxim: minimize benefit and maximize cost to self.

 Approbation maxim: minimize dispraise and maximize praise of other. Modesty maxim: minimize praise and maximize dispraise of self.

 Agreement maxim: minimize disagreement and maximize agreement between selfand other.

 Sympathy maxim: minimize antipathy and maximize sympathy between self andother.

1.5.2.2 POLITENESS IN FACE-SAVING VIEW

One of the leading theories of politeness was developed by Brown and Levinson (1987),who argue that there are two forms of politeness: positive politeness and negativepoliteness

 Positive politeness strategies are attempts by a speaker to treat the listener as afriend or as someone to be included in discourse For an American speaker, givinga friend or co-worker the compliment, “Your hair looks nice today,” would be oneexample of positive politeness

 Negative politeness, on the other hand, is an attempt by the speaker to save thelistener’s face by engaging in some formality or restraint For an American speaker,an example of negative politeness would be responding to the question, “Do youlike my new haircut?” with, “It looks great,” even though the speaker’s true opinionis that the haircut looks horrible.

CHAPTER 2: SEMANTIC FEATURES OF EVIDENTIAL MODAL MARKERS IN ENGLISH

27

The markers could be categorized and evaluated with the help of the scale of Evidentialcertainty which goes from the highest via the medium to the lowest degree of certainty Weadopt the scale of certainty proposed by Givãn as presented in Diagram 4, part 1.3.4.

2.1 EVIDENTIAL MODAL ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

This section is wholly supposed to denote the semantic features of adjectives and adverbs(English – Vietnamese equivalents) which are considered Evidential modal markers AsEvidential modal markers, adjectives and adverbs, with respect to meaning, turn out to bemore “direct” and “specific” than other lexical items expressing Evidential modality.Unlike Evidential modal verbs bearing a little bit more complicated and different semanticfeatures, Evidential modal adjectives and adverbs directly and unambiguously indicate the

The High Certainty

The Medium Certainty

The Low Certainty

P are taken for

P are doubtful

hypotheses and beneath challenge

and substantiation P here are known

as irrealis The

information whose source is largely irrelevant is

weakly asserted The speaker does not intend to defend the information in order to solicit challenge, correction or corroboration

P are open to

challenge and thus require supporting evidence P are

prepared to defend the information by citing the source of evidence.

Evidential modal meaning; therefore, they are seemingly the “purest” markers forEvidential modal qualification

The markers could be categorized and evaluated with the help of the scale of Evidentialcertainty which goes from the highest via the medium to the lowest degree of certainty Weadopt the scale of certainty proposed by Givãn as presented in Diagram 4, part 1.3.4.So as to serve the study well, it is advisable that adjectives discussed be predicatively usedadjectives followed by a complement clause; meanwhile, adverbs treated here must besentential adverbs having a scope over the whole proposition expressed For the reason,typical adjectives and adverbs are used for the analysis They comprise such words as“seemingly, apparently - apparent, evidently - evident, obviously - obvious, surely – sure,undoubtedly, doubtful, clear-clearly; dêng nh lµ, râ rµng lµ, hiÓn nhiªn lµ, ch¾c ch¾n lµ,kh«ng cßn nghi ngê g× n÷a lµ”

In this section, Evidential modal adjectives are going to be studied first, then Evidentialmodal adverbs

2.1.1 EVIDENTIAL MODAL ADJECTIVES

As the foregoing parts have mentioned, English has a number of adjectives regarded as

markers expressing Evidential modality such as “apparent, evident, obvious, sure, clear,doubtful” All these adjectives help the listeners or readers with the reliability of the

information source In other words, the statements uttered can be judged to be whether“true” or “false” (“reliable” or “unreliable”) in terms of the ground encoded by themarkers Thus, Evidential modal markers rank themselves at different levels of certainty.As far as the adjectives analyzed are concerned, each of them belongs to a certain groupreflecting the degree of reliability It is shown in the table below:

The high certaintyThe low certainty

clear, sure, apparent, obvious, evident;râ rµng lµ, ch¾c ch¾n lµ, hiÓn nhiªn lµ

doubtfulnghi ngê r»ng lµ

29

Table 1: Scale of Evidential modal adjectives’ certainty

2.1.1.1 CLEAR, APPARENT OBVIOUS, EVIDENT

“Clear” is defined as being impossible to doubt, question, or to be mistaken about orunmistakable (Longman, Dictionary of English language and culture, 1999) It caninferred that when “clear” is used the speaker intends to show that his/her assertion is well-

founded on the basis of reliable source of information which is easily heard, seen, read,

and understood Similarly, “apparent”, “obvious”, and “evident” share something in

common in terms of meaning that indicates the state of being easily seen or understood It,thus, can be marked with the high level of certainty by the appearance of these adjectiveswithin the utterance which is plain to the senses and clear because of maybe either visualor auditory evidence – the source of information.

(23a) It is clear that we’ve been negatively affected by these changes

= Rõ ràng là chúng ta đã và đang phải chịu những tác động mang tính tiêu cựccủa những thay đổi này.

(23b) It is clear to us that we’ve been negatively affected by these changes

= Chúng ta đều thấy rõ là chúng ta đã và đang phải chịu những tác động mangtính tiêu cực của những thay đổi này.

(24a) It is evident they have no experience in this work.

= Hiển nhiên là họ chẳng có chút kinh nghiệm nào trong công việc này cả.(24b) It is evident to me they have no experience in this work.

= Tôi thấy rõ ràng là họ chẳng có chút kinh nghiệm nào trong công việc này cả.(25a) That he suddenly left home became apparent.

= Việc anh ấy bỏ nhà ra đi đã quá rõ rồi.

(25b) That he suddenly left home became apparent to me.= Tôi biết rõ cái việc anh ấy đã bỏ nhà ra đi

(26a) That he told a lie was obvious.

= Cái chuyện ông ấy đã nói dối quả là quá rõ ràng rồi.(26b) That he told a lie was obvious to me.

= Tôi biết rõ cái chuyện ông ấy đã nói dối.

All the examples encode the same core Evidential modal meaning of the state of affairs

(the high certainty) like “we’ve been negatively affected by these changes” in (23a-b),“they have no experience in this work” in (24a-b), “he suddenly left home” in (25a-b), and

“he told a lie” in (26a-b) that “P is well-understood and clearly seen or heard”.

Observably, these assertions in (23a, 24a, 25a, 26a) dressed up with only Evidential modal

adjectives are regarded as impersonalized, which signals that the speaker may avoidspecifying who is responsible for the judgments though in an explicit orientation; that is,

they prove objectively oriented Whereas utterances in (23b, 24b, 25b, 26b) are turned intobeing personalized in the presence of “to me” and “to us”, making them sound a little bit

more subjective.

2.1.1.2 SURE

Another adjective for Evidential modal qualification occurring so often in communication

turns out to be “sure” By Longman, Dictionary of English language and culture, 1999,“sure” is to express the speaker’s not doubting or seeming to doubt what he believes or

knows, always attached to the person (pronoun) subjects In fact, when the speaker makes

“sure” of his/ her assertions, that means he feels confident in his/ her knowledge or the

source of information for his utterance Or that is to say, the utterance seems to be highlyassured by the speaker in terms of certainty

(27) I am sure that I have met her before somewhere.= Tôi dám chắc rằng tôi đã từng gặp cô ấy ở đâu đó rồi.(28) I feel quite sure that Tom will pass the exam easily.= Tôi tin chắc rằng nó sẽ vợt qua kỳ thi một cách dễ dàng thôi.

By means of two examples, “sure” can be said to be equivalent to “chắc là, tin chắc là,chắc chắn là, dám chắc là” in Vietnamese As seen in (27-28), the speakers offer the highcommitment to the propositions “I have met her before somewhere” or “Tom will pass theexam” In order to make these statements, the speakers have to base upon what they have

31

known or experienced (27) indicates that the woman’s face appears familiar to thespeaker, and from what he/she remembers he has drawn a conclusion that he/she has mether before somewhere Similarly in (28), it is certain that the speaker knows well aboutTom’s ability and Tom’s results at school; that is why he/she states with his strong beliefthat Tom are able to and will pass the exam easily Therefore, the utterances’ proposition isstrongly supported with a quite reliable source of information even though in such asubjective orientation

2.1.1.3 DOUBTFUL

On the contrary to “clear, evident, obvious, apparent” and “sure”, “doubtful” functions asa Evidential modal markers of the low certainty “Doubtful” bears itself the feature of

being uncertain and unconfident of the fact Or the proposition is not well committed to.

When the speaker utters the statement using “doubtful”, from what has been seen or heard

in reality, it proves that the proposition lacks the evidence or the speaker neither has

enough evidence nor feels sure of the source of information Moreover, “doubtful” is saidto be open to question Equivalently, in Vietnamese “đáng ngờ là, đáng nghi ngờ là” can

translate its meaning

(29) It is doubtful that John ever found out something about it.

= Thật là đáng ngờ về chuyện /không thể có chuyện John đã tìm ra cái gì đó liênquan đến sự việc ấy

(30) I find it doubtful that John wrote this when he was ten

= Tôi không chắc/ tôi không tin/ tôi hoàn toàn nghi ngờ về chuyện là John viết cáinày ở tuổi lên mời.

The speakers in both (29-30) hold hardly any belief in propositions “John ever found outsomething about it” or “John wrote this when he was ten” which remain undependable Or

they cannot find out enough evidence to devote high commitment to such propositions.Thus, these propositions seem questionable, causing doubt to the hearer who is certain toknow that the speaker cannot assure the source of information concerning John’s findingout something about it as in (29) and John’s writing it at the age of ten as in (30)

The chosen adjectives here, though different in the certainty level, have well exemplifiedthe Evidential modal markers As suggested by Bellert (1977), these modal adjectives canqualify the state of affairs to the utterance and are part of the complex propositionexpressed by the utterance They can be both impersonalized and personalized, or can besubjectively as well as objectively oriented, which really depends on not only the speaker’sattitudes and intentions, or the evidence he/she acquires, but the structures the speakerutilizes for the utterance as well

2.1.2 EVIDENTIAL MODAL ADVERBS

Along with adjectives, a wide range of adverbs can be of Evidential modality Some ofthem act as prominent markers which are taken into consideration in this section They are

composed of “clearly, obviously, evidently, surely, undoubtedly, apparently, seemingly”.

Most of them are said to derive from the root of adjectives They are tabulated inaccordance with the certainty level in the table below:

The high certaintyThe medium certainty

clearly, obviously, evidently, surely,undoubtedly

râ rµng lµ, hiÓn nhiªn lµ, ch¾c ch¾n lµ, kh«ng cßnnghi ngê g× n÷a

seemingly, apparentlydêng nh lµ, h×nh nh lµ

Table 2: Scale of Evidential modal adverbs’ certainty

2.1.2.1 CLEARLY, OBVIOUSLY, EVIDENTLY

These adverbs are all ly-adverbs whose roots are adjectives; thus, there is no denial that

their meaning can be interpreted from the root-adjectives’ They imply that something is

self-evident, i.e it is no need of further argument The speaker who is using “clearly,obviously, evidently” - the Vietnamese translations are “râ rµng lµ, hiÓn nhiªn lµ” - is

expressing his/her very strong commitment in his/her proposition by either basing onvisual, auditory evidence or logical inference

(31) He was obviously at a loss for my name.

33

= Rõ ràng là anh ấy chịu không nhớ nổi tên tôi.= Anh ấy rõ ràng không thể nhớ nổi tên tôi.(32) Evidently, Kate is not well.

= Rõ ràng là Kate không khoẻ.

(33) You clearly don’t understand what I have explained.= Rõ ràng là bạn không hiểu những gì tôi vừa giải thích.= Bạn rõ ràng không hiểu những gì tôi vừa giải thích.

(31-33) reveal that the speakers have felt confident in their information which comesdirectly from their own experiencing, or witnessing Detailedly, in (31) the speaker mightreport his/her talk with a man who appeared to have forgotten the speaker’s name (32)

refers to the situation in which the speaker utters “Kate is not well” at the sight of her pale

face, or on hearing her cough (33) sees that the speaker might have a conversation withsomeone who fails to understand what the speaker has explained.

2.1.2.2 SURELY

In Elizabethan English, “surely” meant what “certainly” does today, meaning “it is so”which implies no doubt It is obvious that “surely” expresses a very high level ofcommitment in what the speaker is saying “Surely” and its Vietnamese equivalents “hẳnlà, chắc chắn là” show that the speaker is almost certain of what is stated

(34) Surely that is a plain-clothes policeman.= Chắc chắc đó là cảnh sát mặc thờng phục.= Chắc chắn anh ta là cảnh sát mắc thờng phục.(35) Surely I have met him before.

= Chắc chắn tôi đã gặp anh ấy trớc đó rồi.

In (34), there is a hint that the speaker might have recognized a policeman who wasdressed in plain clothes; accordingly, he says so confidently and definitely The same thingcan be applied to (35) Here the speaker has found some familiarity with the man’s face,which reminds the speaker of the fact that the speaker has met the man somewhere before.That means the speaker attaching some weight to the utterance.

2.1.2.3 UNDOUBTEDLY

If “doubtful” can express the low certainty, then “undoubtedly” moves in oppositedirection in terms of certainty scale “Undoubtedly” is used for the affairs of the highcertainty as to the source of information like “clearly, obviously, and evidently”.“Undoubtedly” is quite synonymous to “certainly” or “unquestionably” and equivalent to“không còn nghi ngờ gĩ nữa, đơng nhiên là, rõ ràng là” in Vietnamese,

(36) Undoubtedly, Pat is very intelligent.= Pat rất thông minh là chuyện quá rõ rồi.

= Không có gì nghi ngờ về chuyện Pat rất thông minh cả.(37) John undoubtedly left home

= Hẳn là John đã bỏ nhà ra đi rồi.

At the first sight of “undoubtedly” in English it is immediately inferred that this expresses

negative polarity But in fact, in terms of meaning, it does not; it reveals rather strongpositive polarity though it is morphologically It is much different from its Vietnamese

interpretations “không còn nghi ngờ gĩ nữa” In Vietnamese “không” plus other language

items can cause the negative polarity to their meanings Thus, (36-37) are assuredlypositive as regards meaning In (36), it is really true that Pat is very intelligent, which iswell known to everybody In other words, by what Pat has done does that prove hisintelligence Obviously, no question related to his intelligence is to be raised Whereas, in(37) John might have been found nowhere; hence, basing on the fact, the speaker can makesure that John left home

2.1.2.4 APPARENTLY, SEEMINGLY

When being an adjective, “apparent” can be classified in the group of “clear, obvious,evident”, but in the form of an adverb “apparently” and “seemingly” are placed into thesame classification Both of them can be interpreted as “in appearance, according to theoutward appearance or according to what has been heard” (Longman, Dictionary of

35

English language and culture, 1999) In Vietnamese, they can be understood as “dờng nhlà, hình nh là” They signal the medium certainty in the proposition; to put it in another

way, they express neither a very high nor a very low, but something between, commitmentto what is stated As for the utterance, it is required that evidence be added to support thesource of information more

(38) Apparently she never got my letter after all

= Hình nh là cô ấy rút cuộc cha nhận đợc một lá th nào của tôi cả.(39) That is seemingly an endless problem.

all modal adverbs as Evidential modal markers They, according to Bellert (1977), qualifythe truth of propositions expressed in the utterance in which they occur and henceconstitute a second, meta-linguistic proposition Differently from modal adjectives, theyare not part of the propositional meaning but express the speaker attitude toward theproposition; as such, the speaker cannot question or negate his/her own current attitude.That is why the listeners or even readers on absorbing the statements including theseEvidential modal adverbs uttered by the speaker can feel the sense of subjectivity.

2.2 EVIDENTIAL MODAL NOUNS

It is common knowledge that nouns can function as subjects, complements, objects, and soforth Besides these normal features, nouns like adjectives, adverbs or verbs can hold the

function of expressing modality, “possibility”, or “probability” as examples But, in our

reference within the scope of our study, only nouns of Evidential modality are discussed

herein They are limited to such nouns as “truth, fact, rumor, doubt” which have theVietnamese corresponding meanings of “sự thực là, tin đồn là, mối nghi ngờ là”,

respectively

The scale of certainty by Givón will be made best use of to “weigh” the reliability of the

assertions as well as the propositions in the speaker’s utterance Thenceforward,implications of the certainty of the information sources can be exposed.

Evidential modality can be well qualified with these nominal markers like “truth, fact,rumor, doubt” even though in different ways and at different levels of certainty Before

going into details, it is much better to demonstrate them in the table below in conformationto their rank of certainty

The high certaintyThe medium certaintyThe low certainty

truth, factthực tế là, sự thực là

rumor, no doubttin đồn là, không nghi ngờ gì

doubtmối nghi ngờ là

Table 3: Scale of Evidential modal nouns’ certainty

2.2.1 TRUTH, FACT

As shown in Longman, Dictionary of English language and culture, 1999, “truth” is thestate or quality of being true, or accepted for which proof exists “Fact”, similarly, exposes“the reality” The reason for gathering these two nouns in this sections for analysis is that

they bear hardly difference in meaning, and they both carry the same weight in thespeaker’s utterance In other words, they make the listeners or readers show theirconfidence in what the speaker is saying There seems no doubt in the propositions and noquestions are needed for clearer evidence Moreover, the source of information the speakerbase upon when stating is somehow visible and well known.

37